The present invention relates to a system comprising a computerized cart and an automatic storage/distribution system.
Currently, in supermarkets, shopping information are provided with a myriad of signs and are generic (they indicate the various departments: detergents, others); the mechanical cart is used for shopping, the prices of products on sale are reported on physical tags, which oftentimes even go missing. At the cash register, all products must be removed from the cart to be counted with the manual optical scanner by the operator. Lastly, there is a form of advertising on signs aboard the cart. There is no possibility of qualifying shopping data with the consumer""s characteristics (age, profession, other information) for market research purposes.
The current information service is scattershot, generic, and it engenders only confusion. Moreover, it is not interactive and hence it fails to meet precise requests by the customer (where is the cheese? or other requests). The result is that a synthetic presentation of the shopping scenario cannot be provided, so much so that, especially in large shopping areas, many departments remain unknown, and it is difficult to reach the desired product, or the shopper gives up on the purchase. While shopping, it is often impossible to understand the price of the product, or whether it is on sale, because there was no time to update its price tag due to the innumerable daily variations. Moreover, in order to calculate 1S the total amount as it increases, calculators are used. At the check-out counter, long queues are formed of shoppers waiting for the receipts to be issued. Lastly, the on-board commercial message is almost ineffective. The data for each shopping cart cannot be qualified with the customer""s data (age, profession, other information) and hence they are not useful for the purposes of a specific market research about consumers (identifying the stereotype consumer for that product).
These objects and others besides are attained by the computerized shopping cart able to be articulated into mechanical cart and computerized unit for entering products, with system for the storage and distribution thereof, with services of check-out counter queue elimination, shopping information, emission of commercial messages, real-time market research, pastimes and related auxiliary services for use in supermarkets (groceries area) characterized in that in general it comprises a closed/openable mechanical cart compartment (1) of new design for food products able to be hitched/unhitched through related electromechanical system (19) to the computerized unit for entering products (5), such as to avoid any contact with the interior environment and it checks shopping operations for correctness moreover the electronic unit (6) housed therein, comprises a computer of new design aimed at shopping problems called SHOPPING-COMPUTER (6), with related data base 6d, operating software (16) and firmware (17) for controlling the process of the related parts, in particular the mechanical cart comprises a department (1c2) for containing the inserted products, closed and openable by a related system (4) so as to be able to latch together; it comprises an automatic system (2) for varying (increasing) its internal capacity, an attenuator distributor (3) of the products as they are inserted; the insertion unit (5) comprises a manual mechanical system (5a) for inserting/ejecting the products toward the interior of the container and a series of electronic systems, i.e. the automatic system for optically scanning (7) the standard bar-codes UNIVERSAL PRODUCT CODE (UPC)/EUROPEAN ARTICLE NUMBERING (EAN), one (8) for checking the correctness of the shopping operation, one for the exchange of messages of any nature and form (9, 10, 11), one (12) for 6 emitting multimedia commercial messages, one (13) for market research, one (14) for pastimes, one (15) for power supply; one (25) controlling the removal of the insertion unit; the mechanical cart is parked free outside, whereas insertion units are distributed (at the 5 entrance) and stored (before departure) by the auxiliary automatic distribution/storage system (90); it comprises the central system (22) (data exchange via ether/shopping data concentrator, control over cash register (22f) for receipt issue, control over storage/distribution system) (20); it comprises the automatic payment (self-service) counter (23); moreover within the aboard unit it comprises the computerized map (24) of product distribution on the various shelves, aided by orientation units (position co-ordinate) installed within the commercial area, and related orientation units (position co-ordinates).